Nikhil (Kaliszian Book 1) (32 page)

"You are not," Luol told her bluntly, then looked to Treyvon whose gaze was still locked on the closed repair unit.

"Nikhil, you are relieved of your duties," Treyvon told him in a hard voice. "See to your Ashe. That's an order."

"Yes, General," Nikhil replied, and before Mac could protest, swept her up in his arms and carried her away.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Mac curled up into Nikhil's arms and let him carry her away from her friend. She knew Luol was right. There was nothing she could do for Jen right now. She needed to regain her strength if she was going to help Jen when she woke. She knew Nikhil was still upset with her, knew there was still a lot she needed to explain. That's why she was surprised when instead of carrying her to the couch he carried her into the cleansing stall and set her on her feet.

"Nikhil?" she looked up at him questioningly.

"You can not rest covered in blood," he told her curtly, starting to pull her stained covering up.

"Nikhil..." she put a hand on his arm stopping him. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you, but it wasn't my secret to reveal."

"You didn't trust me!" For the first time, he revealed the depth of the hurt her secret had caused him.

"I do! God, Nikhil! You have to know I do!" She gripped his face, pulling it down so he could see the truth in her eyes. "With my
life
! With my
soul
! "

"Then why not with
this
?!!" he asked.

"Because it wasn't
my
secret to tell! It wasn't about
me
! You saw Jen, saw what she suffered, what she's had to survive, and there's more." Her thumbs covered his lips to stop him from speaking. "But that's for Jen to tell. It's her story. Don't ask me to betray that trust... because I would, if
you
asked me to. If
you
needed me to. There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, Nikhil. Don't you know that?"

Nikhil stared down at his Ashe. His True Mate. Could he truly fault her for being so loyal to one of her own? A female. A female she had obviously bonded with in the way he had with many of his warriors. He was demanding something of her that he wasn't certain he could give her in return. What did that say about
him
?

"Do not break your vow, my Mackenzie. When she is ready for it to be known, it will be, but I must ask you this. Are there any other females hiding?"

"No! It was just Jen and me. I vow it!" Sealing her vow, she pressed her lips against his and wrapped her arms around his neck.

For a moment, Nikhil didn't respond, and Mac thought she had lost him but then he groaned, and his arms wrapped around her and he lifted her off her feet. She immediately wrapped her legs around his waist and held on.

Nikhil ravished her mouth. He couldn't believe how close he had come to losing her, and not just because of the Zaludians. He had reacted badly finding out she was keeping something from him. He'd yelled at her, had nearly lost control, but she hadn't run from him, hadn't feared him. She'd trusted him not to harm her even then. He needed to deserve that trust and thinking only of his own needs and desires was not the way.

Ripping his mouth away from hers, he stared down at the darkness that was flowing from her hair with the force of the shower. Darkness caused by the blood she'd lost when she'd been injured. That was one thing the deep-repair unit couldn't compensate for. Yes, it could replace the blood, but it took time for the body to reabsorb what it had lost.

"Nikhil?" Mac looked up at him questioningly.

"I need to care for you, Mackenzie. I need to show you how much I love you and that I will never harm you."

"I know this, Nikhil. You don't have to prove anything to me," she searched his glowing green eyes and saw that he felt he did. As his size had been held against him his entire life, he needed to show her he could still be gentle and caring. Slowly, she unwrapped her legs from around his waist and let him lower her to the floor.

"Alright, but I'm not letting go of you," she told him, wrapping her arms around his waist. "I need you close."

Nikhil would never complain about his Mackenzie's hands on him, but he stilled, hearing the tremble in his mate's voice. "Mackenzie?"

"I was so scared, Nikhil," she whispered burrowing into his chest. "When I realized it was the Zaludians that were attacking."

Nikhil hated the fear he heard in her voice. Hated that he hadn't been there for her when she needed protected. He also knew that she needed to voice that fear before she could heal. Slowly, he began to work the cleansing liquid into her hair and listened.

"Paul was just coming over to talk to us. He'd finished shaving and cutting all the guys’ hair, and wanted to know if either of us wanted our hair trimmed."

Nikhil had to call on all his control to stop himself from growling his displeasure at her cutting any part of the amazing mass his fingers were now in.

"We all heard the first explosion but didn't know where it was coming from. We didn't realize we were under attack. Not until the exterior wall blew out and the Zaludians started storming in. I couldn't believe it. I don't think any of us could. The Jerboaians took the worst of it. They were the closest to the wall. Once the Zaludians were inside, they seemed to take a moment and then they zeroed in on us. They were looking for us... for me." She looked up at him, fear filling her eyes again. "Why were they looking for me, Nikhil?"

"We do not know for sure," he told her truth as he continued to cleanse her hair, because this concerned her and she had the right to know. "Treyvon believes it might have something to do with the Tornians."

"The Tornians? But why? I've never even met one."

"I know." Gripping her head, he carefully tipped it back rinsing away the foam as his thumbs gently removed the remaining blood on her face.

"Then why?" she asked, looking him in the eye.

"It seems not long ago the Tornian Emperor discovered a female that might be breeding compatible with them."

"Breeding compatible?" Mac frowned, then remembered that for the Tornians the Goddess' Great Infection had caused fewer and fewer females to be born. That now, according to the educator, Tornian males now outnumbered their females two hundred to one and that they were unable to breed with any other known species. "But that still doesn't explain why me."

"Treyvon briefly met the female, here on Pontus, when the Emperor's shuttle crashed. He said that while her appearance was very different than yours, that you were still similar to her in skin tone and size."

"He thinks she's from Earth," Mac whispered, lifting her arms as Nikhil removed her stained covering.

"He does not know. All he knows is that the Ganglians captured both of you. He had never seen one like her before, but if she is breeding compatible and if the Zaludians or Ganglians have made that connection, then you would be extremely valuable to them."

"Because they could sell me to males desperate to have offspring," Mac whispered, in horror.

"Yes," he told her honestly.

"Nikhil..."

"That will never happen!" he told her seeing the fear in her eyes. He couldn't stand it. Lifting her off her feet, he captured her lips in a hard, deep kiss.

"Nikhil..." she gasped into his mouth. "I need you. I need to feel you inside me," she wrapped her legs back around his hips and wrapped her arms around his head. "Please."

Nikhil knew he could never refuse his Mackenzie, especially when what she was asking for was him. Pressing her against the wall, he hooked an arm under her ass lifting her up as he pulled back just far enough to free himself from his pants. Setting the head of his shaft at her entrance, he gripped her tiny waist and slowly lowered her onto him.

Mac gasped as she felt Nikhil begin to fill her. Goddess, he was it so large... she knew that, but it still surprised her every time they made love and it turned her on. He stretched her tight channel to the point that she could feel the heavy beat of his heart pulsing deep inside her, making them truly one.

"Nikhil!" she cried out, ripping her mouth from his as she took all of him.

"Mine! You are mine, Mackenzie! Only mine!" he growled as he slowly began to thrust in and out of her, groaning at the way her channel clung to his shaft trying to suck him back in as he pulled nearly completely out of her. Unable to stop himself, he thrust back in as deeply as he could, needing to connect with her in the most primitive of ways. He could already feel his balls pulling up, and he wanted to fill her with his seed, wanted to claim her, to make sure no male ever doubted that she was his. He wanted his seed to take root and for her to bear his offspring. He wanted everything he had never thought he could have. "Goddess, Mackenzie!"

Mac couldn't believe the feelings that were flowing through her, and she knew they were all coming from Nikhil through the True Mate bead she wore. Reaching out, she grasped the braid that had once held that bead and felt an extra jolt of love and connection that sent her into a powerful orgasm that had her screaming out her pleasure as Nikhil exploded inside of her.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

Nikhil lay beside his Mackenzie in their bed, an arm thrown across her waist keeping her close as he watched her sleep. Goddess, he shouldn't have taken her like that. Especially after all she'd been through that day. He should have just cleansed her and let her rest... but he couldn't regret it, he'd never regret it.

"You'd better not," she told him sleepily.

"What?" he asked and watched as she struggled to open her eyes far enough to gaze into his.

"You better not regret it," she told him. "If you do, I'll kick your ass."

"How... how did you know I was thinking that?"

"Because you said it, dummy." Her eyes started to close again.

"I didn't. I just thought it." Nikhil's whisper had her eyes opening again.

"You had to have said it, otherwise how could I have heard you?"

"Because that is the other secret Kaliszians have always kept about their True Mate bead. When exchanged, they allow them to not only feel what the other is feeling, but also speak to them in their minds.

"What?" she gave him a confused look.

"Only True Mates, ones they have exchanged their beads and have the deepest of bonds, can hear the other’s thoughts."

"But we didn't..." Mackenzie's words trailed off as her gaze went to Nikhil's braid that once held his True Mate and Ashe bead. Now, halfway up that braid was a green bead with amber swirling through it.

Nikhil's gaze followed hers and came to rest on what she was holding in her delicate hand, and he felt his heart stutter. There, attached to
his
braid, his Ashe's fingers lovingly caressing it, lay the most beautiful bead he had ever seen. It was a lighter green than the one she wore, and it swirled with warm amber instead of the white of his, but he still knew what it was. It was impossible. She wasn't Kaliszian, but he was wearing her True Mate bead.
He
was wearing it.

"Nikhil? How is this possible?"

"I do not know, but I can only thank the Goddess that it has."

"The Goddess?" she whispered.

Something in his Mackenzie's tone had him giving her a hard look. "Mackenzie, what aren't you telling me?"

"I thought it was a dream," she whispered.

"What are you talking about?"

"Meeting the Goddess... and her mate. We, umm, really didn't get along all that well."

"What?!!" Nikhil didn't try to hide his shock.

"She challenged what I felt for you, that it was truth because I didn't believe in the bead."

"You don't?" he asked.

"I believe in
you,
Nikhil, with or without your bead. But I will always love, cherish and protect it, just as I will you for the rest of my life." She looked at her braid that held his True Mate and Ashe bead and smiled at what she somehow knew would be there.

A Dasho bead.

Reaching up, she removed the amber bead with white swirls running through it and looked to her Nikhil.

"Nikhil Kozar, will you be my Dasho? I vow if you accept this bead that I will always love and protect you with all my heart and soul and that when the Goddess calls my name to enter the Promised Land, I will still fight to remain at your side."

Nikhil felt his breath stall. He'd come to accept that he would never wear her Dasho bead. He'd thought he was fine with it, but now he realized how much he had wanted to wear her bead.

"Mackenzie Wharton, I accept you as my Ashe, as I have before and always will with or without wearing your bead. You are my love, my heart, and my soul, and if the Goddess tries to welcome me into the Promised Land without you, I will refuse and always remain at your side."

Wrapping his fingers around hers, together they brought the bead closer, and it seemed to jump from their fingertips to firmly affix itself halfway up his braid.

Mac stared at the bead for a moment then looked into Nikhil's eyes. "I love you, Nikhil. With or without those beads, you are the only one I was meant for, the only one I will ever love. Now," she gave him a teasing smile, "show me how much you love me."

T
he Supreme Commander of the Kaliszian Defenses stared down at the female lying so peacefully on the repair unit bed and felt the most extreme rage filling him. Luol had refused to move her, stating that her condition was so fragile that he wouldn't risk not being able to immediately close the unit, if needed.

Her injuries had been healed, as that was what the unit did, but still she refused to wake. Luol had also told him that the worst of her injuries, the broken bones that had healed in the mine, were irreparable, that they would still cause her pain.

That was unacceptable to him. No female should ever have to suffer. Especially not this tiny, fragile-looking creature that he couldn't seem to pull himself away from. She was too vulnerable, too beautiful. He'd never seen a female that rivaled her beauty and knew that what ever it took to keep her safe he would do it... or die trying.